The problem I run into on a daily basis: People bring artwork in to me, laid out at 8 1/2" x 11", to print flyers. Then they decide that they want posters, printed on 11" x 17". But the proportion is different. You end up with a few inches of white space at the top and bottom.
Nobody can understand this. They try to tell me that 8 1/2 x 11 is half of 11x17, so you just have to enlarge it. They can’t understand why I can’t enlarge it without changing the proportions.
Then they decide they want a smaller flyer…5 1/2" x 8 1/2". Once again, white space at the top and bottom. And then tiny little postcards…5 1/2" x 4 1/4".
Each of these is cut in half, but the proportions are all messed up.
The only time the ratios line up is if you go from 11" x 17" to 5 1/2" x 8 1/2". Also 8 1/2" x 11" down to 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" (but then they want the postcard at a more standard 4" x 6", which doesn’t work proportionally with anything.)
The International Standard paper sizes would work well for me…I’d never be able to remember the dimensions, but it’d save me a lot of trouble.
Also maybe worth noting, in terms of the scale issue at least, is that if you have an A1 CAD drawing at 1:100 scale, it will print out very nicely and conveniently on A3 at 1:200.
Ftg convinced me. The sqrt(2) standard was nowhere as rational as it seems. Too bad there’s so many thick people not understanding ftg (or maybe the understanding ones aren’t posting–always a sad phenomenon in threads).
It’s found it advantages today, though. Makes a lot of sense with computers.
:smack: Two scale-downs will give you back exactly half the original page no matter what its ratio was.
Since so much of my, for now, former profession was structured around the standard ANSI and Architectural (US) paper sizes, and considering the several, given a plotter using a roll of a specific width but indeterminate length and that I plotted all copies rather than sending them out to a print shop, paper sizes I invented for my own use, this thread has me misty-eyed.
There is one, and only one, reason why paper makers should choose the ratio 1:sqrt(2). The reason is that cutting such a piece of paper in half results in two pieces of paper which are similar (in the sense of geometry) to the original sheet. That’s it. That’s the reason. If this is a property which you would like your paper to have, then there is one and only one ratio to choose.
A system of standard paper sizes based around this proportion is nice because any sheet of An paper can be cut or folded to be the next smaller size and the proportions remain the same. That’s the reason and it’s the reason that your Z paper is not as convenient. Any sheet of A paper is the same shape as any other sheet of A paper. I never thought that you did not know that 8:5 and 5:4 were different ratios, I was simply posting to make clear that the “Z” scale paper does not have the shape preserving aspect.
If you wanted to extend the notation you could say that a sheet of Ax paper is a sheet whose sides are in the ratio 1:sqrt(2) and whose area is 2[sup]-x[/sup]. Then B0 paper would be approximately A(sqrt(2)) and C0 would be approximately A(fourth root of 2).
Does this kind of thing display an obsessive attention to detail? That depends on what you consider obsessive. Is the metric system obsessive because one kilometer is 1000 meters? There’s no physical reason why most of the world doesn’t use feet and miles, just convention.
Just for completeness’ sake, the ANSI sizes (A, B=letter, C, D, E) are defined retroactively in terms of letter paper and doubling, but have the unfortunate side-effect of being different shapes.
They do. It’s just down the street.
I can’t interupt my train of thought every time to look everything up.
Unfortunately, if I spent all my time looking up all the stuff I wondered about, I’d spend every waking hour on the internet, and never get anything done…
Alex Dubinsky: Please do not refer to other posters as “thick.” A ream of paper is thick, not other posters. Personal insults are not permitted in this forum.